“The remainder of this precious life was consecrated to us. Repose would have best suited my father even under Bonaparte’s consular magistracy, but under Napoleon’s imperial despotism honor prescribed retirement. The dearest wish of my mother’s heart was to lead a private life. If, after so many fatigues and sufferings, quiet had not been necessary, the possibility of peacefully consecrating herself to the affections which filled her soul, to the one especially which surpassed them all, was the only happiness she could desire. She felt too deeply, too passionately, I may say, the emotions of family life to wish for any other. Neither the grandeur of her former position, nor even the lustre of her misfortunes, had given birth in her mind to that restless pride which cannot bear to return to a homely life. Though her devoted courage had arisen above the greatest trials, still the feelings and easy duties of an obscure destiny would have sufficed to satisfy her heart. Love filled her whole being. “God permitted her to enjoy, during the last years of her life, greater happiness than she had ever ventured to hope for. My mother’s health was greatly impaired, but her natural and simple courage acted as a charm to deceive us. We beheld her always serene and tender, taking the liveliest part in the happiness caused by the birth of her three eldest grandchildren. She bore with gentle fortitude the anxieties of which my brother and my husband were the objects during the campaigns of 1805 and 1806. She heard with joy of George’s good fortune when he saved his general’s life at the battle of Eylau. The peace which followed brought on for her a period of unmingled happiness. At the end of the spring of 1807, it seemed that God had accomplished all my mother’s desires in this world. A few days after the return of my brother and of my husband, in August, my mother was taken with violent pains and strong fever. On the 11th of October she heard mass for the last time in the chapel of La Grange. The disorder attacked her brain in a most fearful manner. My mother’s delirium was peculiar and entirely in keeping with her character; she was completely absorbed by her affection for those she loved; in her wanderings she would mistake herself on our situations, never on our characters: she knew us to the last. One day she called my sister to her and said: ‘Have you an idea of what maternal feeling is? Are you like me? Do you know all its joys? Is there anything sweeter, deeper, stronger? Do you feel, like me, the want of loving and of being loved?’